


and if i may just take your breath away

by xxPayne



Series: Unrelated Short AU's/Drabbles [4]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, American AU, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Meet-Cute, Single Parent Harry, Single Parent Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 19:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4757945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxPayne/pseuds/xxPayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Harry doesn’t know why, but in that moment he wants nothing more than to see Louis smile. So he thinks for a minute, and then pulls out his best joke, the one that makes Harper laugh in a second flat whenever she’s sad. “I’ve got to tell you the best joke! Okay, so, why did the football coach go to the bank?” he waits for Louis’ weary shake of the head, the tiniest smile peeking from the corners of his mouth. “To get his quarter back!”</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>or, Single Parent Harry loses his six year old daughter in a corn maze and embarks on an adventurous adventure with single parent Louis to find her. Also, Harper is a matchmaker in disguise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and if i may just take your breath away

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's in the fall spirit already?  
> I skipped my politics class to write this in the bathroom on my phone because I was so HYPED about fall. So I hope you enjoy and are as hyped about fall as I am :) x
> 
> (title from sweater weather by the neighbourhood, which I'm listening to on repeat because it's so....fall....)

When Harry wakes up, his lips are cracking, his skin is dry, and he feels cold down to his very core. He tugs the blankets up higher in the hopes of catching a few more minutes of sleep, but if there’s light filtering in through the window, there’s bound to be…

“Daddy! Wake up, Daddy, wake up! It’s the morning, Dad, wake up!”

The loud, squeaky voice repeats this in chants, over and over again until Harry finally sighs and starts to sit up. Immediately, the tiny child jumps onto the bed and sets off in a monologue of everything they’re going to do today. In Harry’s half asleep mind, it sounds sort of like the adults in Charlie Brown. Still, he tries his hardest to listen to his daughter, or at least feign attentiveness, as she goes on and on about it.

“First, you promised I could buy some more boots, so we have to go to the store, and also can we go to Starbucks and buy teas?” she pauses for a second, waiting for a confirmation or denial that never comes. Pouting, she barrels on. “Then you _promised_ that we’d go pick out pumpkins to paint. You _promised_ , Daddy!”

Harry nods, wiping the tiredness from his eyes. “I did, that’s right,” he mumbles, voice gruff with sleep. “Then what?”

“Well, I’m not sure yet,” she smiles. “The rest of the day depends on what happens the first part of the day! Okay?”

“Okay,” Harry laughs, flipping the blankets aside and immediately shivering at the cold. “But _first_ , we put on our fuzziest sweaters and eat some pancakes, yeah?”

+

Louis wakes up angry, and he can’t for the life of him figure out why. It’s been happening a lot lately--he opens his eyes, listens to the birds chirping and sees the sun rise, and then he’s suddenly angry, just full of confusing rage. With a heavy sigh, he peels back the blankets and goes straight for the thermostat, cranking it up so it doesn’t feel like a meat locker inside. Then, he sluggishly changes into his workout clothes and makes his way to the basement, where he has a treadmill from the 90’s and a--literally--beat up punching bag. He stares at it while he puts on his gloves, wondering if maybe he should buy a new one. He’d bought it at a garage sale years ago, so it’s had it’s fair share of love. Or, well, not love, exactly. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he hits it again and again, until he’s sweating buckets and his knuckles hurt despite the thick gloves protecting them. “Fuck,” he mutters, taking a step back so he can take off the gloves.

“That’s a bad word,” a sarcastic voice calls from across the room.

Louis rolls his eyes, but it’s in a good-natured way. He’s never still been angry after boxing.

“Gabe is going to pick me up in, like, an hour,” his son says, already consumed with something on his phone. “And you smell. Really bad.”

Louis grumbles something indignantly, but then he realizes the first thing his son had said. “No, no, he’s not. You and I are going to Fair Fields today, remember?”

“What the fuck, Dad?” he cries, shoving his phone in his pocket and staring Louis down. “I never said I would. Why the hell would I want to go to a pumpkin patch? I’m not five years old.”

“First of all, Cameron Elliot, do not fucking swear at me,” Louis says, his words angrier than his tone of voice. “Second, it’s tradition. We’re going to the pumpkin patch, like we go every year, and we’re going to pick the biggest _fucking_ pumpkins, and we’re going to come home and carve them even though they’ll turn out terribly, like they always do. Now, I suggest you don’t continue to argue with me, because you’ll lose, and it will only convince me not to buy you a donut at Fair Fields.”

Cameron opens his mouth to say something, but he must think better of it, because he shuts it and nods solemnly.

“Call Gabe back and ask if he wants to come with,” Louis says calmly. “I’m getting in the shower.”

+

It’s been a few hours since Harry was forced awake by his hyperactive daughter, Harper. They had indeed gone to the shoe store and bought her a ridiculously overpriced pair of leather boots. “Because it’s my birthday in _one month_ ,” she had said, after Harry told her she didn’t need real leather shoes. “And don’t you think I deserve real leather? I’ll only have one sixth birthday.”

And how could Harry argue with that logic? So he’d bought her the shoes, and then he’d bought her the tea, and while they were standing in Starbucks she mentioned that she wants a new mug for when she drinks hot chocolate at home, so he’d bought her that too. He’s spineless when it comes to Harper. After everything, they don’t make it to Fair Fields until noon.

There aren’t too many people around, as it's the very start of the fall season and most people are still trying to cling to the last moments of summer. Harry has always liked fall better, and he was so glad to find out that Harper does too. At the entrance of the pumpkin patch, there’s a tiny cafe where they serve two things--cinnamon donuts and hot apple cider, both of which are to die for. Harper steers them in that direction, but Harry shakes his head. “We just drank tea, babe, let’s wait until we’re done here to get the food.”

Harper pouts for a moment, but then she notices the giant two-dimensional apple, with two cut-outs towards the middle for you to put your face in and take a picture. “Ooh, Daddy, let’s go there!” so he lets her tug him towards it, but there’s already a few people waiting by the time they make their way.

It’s a man and two teenage boys, the latter of which do not look happy to be here at all. They’re both crossing their arms and tapping their feet while the man tries to steer them towards the huge apple. “Just let me take a picture,” the man says impatiently. “And then I promise I’ll leave you alone for a bit.”

The two boys grumble and seem generally annoyed, one of the boys even saying, “Cam, I can’t believe you dragged me here,” but eventually the squeeze their heads into the cut-outs long enough for the man to snap a picture, a satisfied smile on his face.

“Hey, Gabe, could you take a picture of me and Cameron?” the man asks one of the teenagers, who shrugs and steps forward to grab the camera. The other teen, Cameron, pulls a face and squints his eyebrows at his friend’s betrayal. The man doesn’t care, it seems, as he puts on the biggest smile--Jesus, Harry thinks, the eye crinkles make him look inhumanely attractive--and waits for, presumably, his son to do the same. It takes a few seconds, but eventually the boy is able to take a picture of the father and son both smiling into the big apple.

Harper has started to become impatient, tugging on Harry’s arm and silently trying to make the trio speed up. Though it doesn’t work, the man and the two teenagers eventually leave the apple, and Harry watches as the two boys start splitting up from the man, leaving him alone to stand in the middle of the farm with nothing to do. Harry squints his eyebrows and calls out to him, “Excuse me, erm, could you take a picture of my daughter and I?”

The man looks up instantly, a smile taking over his previously worried features as he watched the two boys walk away. “Sure, yeah,” he says, and takes the camera when Harry hands it to him.

Harry and Harper get into place, nearly identical grins being shoved into the cut-outs--dimples and all. “Perfect,” the man says. “Smile big! One, two, three…”

Then the flash goes off and Harry already knows it's a great picture. “Thanks a lot,” Harry tells the man, who hands back the camera after making sure the photo turned out well enough. Harper seems content picking trampled on wildflowers from around the apple, so Harry decides he has enough time to at least introduce himself, even if nothing comes of it. “I’m Harry.”

“Louis,” the man seems relieved that he has someone to talk to, and Harry finds himself frowning a little. He wonders why a man like this would ever feel lonely. “How old is your daughter?”

Harry shoots Harper a fond glance and answers, “Almost six and she won’t let me forget it,” he laughs. “What about your sons?”

“Oh, only one of them is my son, Cameron. He’s fifteen,” Louis nods, biting his lip. “I sort of wish he was still six sometimes.”

Harry doesn’t know why, but in that moment he wants nothing more than to see Louis smile. So he thinks for a minute, and then pulls out his best joke, the one that makes Harper laugh in a second flat whenever she’s sad. “I’ve got to tell you the best joke! Okay, so, why did the football coach go to the bank?” he waits for Louis’ weary shake of the head, the tiniest smile peeking from the corners of his mouth. “To get his _quarter back_!”

Harry bursts out laughing so hard that he can’t breathe, and he figures that’s what makes Louis laugh too, rather than the joke itself.

Louis does this funny thing when he laughs--his whole face scrunches up, especially the corners of his eyes, and his mouth falls open like he’s surprised by his own joy, and so he throws a hand over his lips while his shoulders shake and giggles keep tumbling out of his mouth, and Harry wonders how he’d ever lived without seeing something so beautiful. For a second, he’s stunned speechless, and then Harry finally says, “See, it was a good one, yeah?”

That just sets Louis off again, and they’re both laughing, and laughing, and laughing, over one of the dumbest jokes in existence.

Then, Harry realizes that Harper didn’t laugh, and frowns, thinking maybe she didn’t hear it. He looks around, and feels unnecessary panic creeping into his stomach when he doesn’t see the familiar head of long curls anywhere. Louis must realize the same thing, because his lips press together and he starts looking too. She isn’t anywhere near the flowers she once was picking, she isn’t hanging around the apple, she isn’t even wandering towards the cafe, nor is she in the biggest patch of pumpkins adjacent to where Harry and Louis are standing. “Shit,” Harry whispers, completely unsure of which direction he should start walking in.

“I’ll call Cameron, maybe he’s seen her,” Louis says, surely trying to calm the frantic father. Harry appreciates the effort, but the farm is so big, there’s almost no way the two teenagers would’ve seen tiny, little Harper. Louis dials his son’s number, and immediately feels worried himself as nobody answers. “Jesus, where is _he_ , now? Okay, maybe Harper followed them when she got bored, and I think Cam and Gabe were going to the corn maze. We could go wait at the exit for them to come out?”

Harry nods, and takes a deep breath. Harper will be okay, they just have to find her.

They make their way to the end of the maze quickly, but there’s next to no one else here with them. There is a rickety park bench, though, and they go sit there and try to waste time. Louis tries calling Cameron again, but there’s no answer. It’s only a few minutes before Harry is worried again, thinking that they’re just sitting here when Harper could be getting thrown into someone’s car and taken far, far away and he’ll never see her again, and--

“ _Harry_ ,” Louis says, his eyebrows scrunched in worry. “Harry, it’ll be okay. Yeah, what if we went through the corn maze ourselves? That way if Harper is lost, we could find her and it’ll all be fine.”

“Okay, yeah,” Harry nods, leaping up and fast-walking around the corner to the entrance of the maze. At least, he thinks, it’s a good thing it’s not one of those scary corn mazes with the jump-scares and crazy screaming. It hurts to imagine Harper ever walking through one of those alone. “Come on, Louis!”

+

They severely underestimated the difficulty of this particular corn maze. When Louis had suggested going through it himself, he figured it was one of those mazes specifically made for kids, where a dead end just means you turn around and go the only other way, and you’ll eventually make it out in less than half an hour. Not so. A dead end means that you don’t know it’s a dead end until you’ve already passed several other pathways, so there’s really no way you can just _turn around_ , you have to pick a new path and blindly follow it. There’s not even an overhead map or anything, just vast paths lined with thick stalks of corn. Louis keeps glancing over at Harry worriedly, because the man is just short of literally tearing his hair out and crying. “It’s okay,” Louis keeps saying, though he’s starting to feel worried himself. They’ve been in the maze for ten minutes already, and yet when they peek through the walls of corn, they can still see the entrance to it; they’ve barely made it fifteen feet.

Every now and then, Harry will call out, “Harper?” and the only response will be a crow cawing. There are a few people wandering through the maze, but none of them have seen a little girl about ‘this high’. When Louis takes his phone out to call Cameron, he sees that he has no service anymore, which must mean his son doesn’t either. They make it a bit farther before Louis’ feet start hurting, so he can’t imagine how Harry must feel, wearing fashion boots with a tiny heel. It doesn’t deter Harry, though, and he actually starts walking faster as time goes on.

It’s more of the same for another twenty minutes, and by now it would be just as difficult to make their way back to the entrance as it would to follow it to the exit, though they know by now that Harper could be lost in one of the many tricky dead ends, and that even if she was in here, they might not run into her at all. Then, Louis remembers when Cameron was only four, and they’d been right here at Fair Fields when Cam got lost in the crowd, and Louis had been able to use the intercom to call for him. He tells Harry as much, but Harry points out that if she’s lost in the maze, she wouldn’t be able to make her way to the front to find him anyway. The words ‘or if she got stolen’ aren’t said, but are certainly thought about.

Then, up ahead, there’s a giant open space that’s a perfect circle, but still lined with corn. There’s nothing in it except a small park bench, and the only way out is where they came. “Mother _fucker_ ,” Harry mutters, cheeks turning pink when he realizes what he said. “It’s another dead end!”

They scan the area once more, thinking maybe Harper had decided to wait here for a while, before sighing and turning around to go back. But as Louis averts his eyes, he notices another path, a small one, cutting through the corn stalks on the opposite side of the clearing. It’s not wide enough to be an actual, intended pathway, so someone must have decided to cheat. “Wait, Harry, do you think Harper would be strong enough to push the corn down like that?”

Harry bites his lip and looks around as if the answer will be written in plain air. “I, I don’t really know. I mean, maybe? We could try it?”

So they cross the clearing and make their way through the cheaters’ path, getting poked by sticks and literal cobs of corn, and Harry starts calling for Harper again. Louis joins in, because this time he really feels like this is where she would be.

“Dad?”

It’s not Harper, but it’s Cameron, so that’s cause for a bit of celebration.

They keep following the path and eventually make it to yet another clearing, but this time they finally see what they’ve been wanting to see this whole time. Cameron and Gabe are sitting on the bench, with tiny, little Harper sandwiched between them, her hands being held on each side. “Daddy!” she cries, kicking her chubby legs until she’s able to jump off the bench and run into his arms.

Harry grips her like he hasn’t seen her in years, and Louis is sure that it feels that way too. Louis goes over to Cameron and kisses him on the forehead, despite the immediate frown and pleas for him to stop. “Have you guys been here the whole time?”

Cameron blushes and bites his lip. “Erm, well, yeah?”

Harper pulls out of her dad’s embrace and, with a sly smile on her face, innocently cries, “They were _kissing_. In the _corn_.”

The surprise on Louis’ face must be comical, because out of the corner of his eye, Louis sees Harry covering his mouth, trying to hide a laugh, but his dimples give him away. Louis is honestly so surprised, and _why_ didn’t Cameron _tell_ him? Is he not approachable enough? Was he scared he’d judge him? When--

“ _Harper_!” Cameron and Gabe whine at exactly the same time. Cam finishes with, “You said you wouldn’t tell!”

“Oh, yeah,” Harper giggles, shrugged, like ‘what can you do?’. “Sorry, Cammy.”

“And I told you not to call me that,” Cameron grumbles, avoiding Louis’ questioning eyes. He takes a step away from Gabe, but the truth is already out.

As Harry uses the silence to admonish Harper about running away and talking to strangers--“even nice strangers”--Louis raises his eyebrow at his son, who is trying to slowly back away from everyone. He doesn’t say anything, though, because Louis may not understand the reason why Cameron didn’t want to tell him, but there must be one, so he doesn’t push him.

When Harry is done teaching Harper the same lessons he’s been teaching her her whole life (although she obviously didn’t take them to heart), he turns to Cameron and Gabe and says, “Thank you, really, for not letting her wander around alone, and for keeping her safe. I really appreciate it.”

The teenagers blow it off, mumbling “no problem”s and shrugging, but Louis can tell they’re quite proud of themselves.

Then Harper opens her mouth and starts rambling about how she followed them into the corn maze because she was _so bored_ , and then she got lost but _didn’t cry_ , and then she found the big empty space and sat down on the bench, and then she heard corn breaking and got _just a little bit afraid_ , and then she saw that it was just the _two people from earlier_ , and then--“Well, then I went up to them and said, ‘Oh, do you like each other? But you’re two boys!’ and then I remembered what you told me, Dad, and I said, ‘Wait, my Dad likes boys too. That’s okay.’”

Harry’s eyes widen and he blushes deeply, and he says to his daughter, “Babe, you really shouldn’t ask strangers about things like that, okay? Not everyone would be as nice as these two. And, uh, not everyone is very nice when you tell them about me, either, yeah?”

Harper pouts. “I know that, Daddy, but guess what?”

Harry squints, and humors her. “What?”

“He said that _his_ dad likes boys too!”

Now that everyone aside from Harper is embarrassed and sort of wishing to dig a hole in the ground to crawl into, Louis says, “How about we go get some donuts? I’ll buy.”

They all take the way out of the conversation, and turn around to exit the clearing. And although it takes a long time to get out of the corn maze, it’s much easier now that nobody is stressed about lost children, and they even manage to have some fun together. Harper keeps trying to make everyone hold hands, Harry keeps telling terrible jokes to make Louis laugh, Louis keeps trying to grill Gabe with casually invasive questions, and Cameron and Gabe keep dancing around the topic of _each other_. All in all, it makes for an entertaining time together, even if the corn maze is nearly impossible to get out of, and it ends up taking them a whole other hour.

At the end of it, they all cheer and start running towards the opening, glad to finally see something other than corn for miles. All of their feet hurt, but so do their cheeks, from smiling so hard. As promised, Louis buys all of them a cup of hot apple cider and a cinnamon donut each, which ends very messily as Harper insists on rubbing her sticky hands all over everyone’s face. That’s how Louis knows that _yeah, maybe this will work out_ , when Cameron doesn’t flinch at all. In just a few hours, he’s gone from moody teenager to the playful big-brother-type, and if Louis weren’t seeing it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t believe it. Either way, when all the food is gone and everyone is covered in cinnamon and sugar, Louis has the very clear thought of, _I can’t let this be the last time I see Harry_.

+

It’s the month before Harper’s eleventh birthday, and her feet are adorned with brand-spanking-new, real-leather boots, and in one hand is a paper cup filled with hot apple cider, the other, a cinnamon donut. She munches on it happily, using her pinky to brush back the curtain of curls on her head without getting it greasy from the donut. Around her, she takes in the scenery of her most favorite place on earth, where she comes with her dad every year, without fail. Fair Fields is her home, it seems. Everything in it, from the giant apple cut-out, to the god-awful corn maze, to the tiny little cafe feels like coming home. Now that she’s old enough to appreciate it, she realizes that her family would be completely different had she not begged her dad to take her pumpkin-picking that day, five autumns ago. Not only did she meet her best friend, Cam (who is nearly a decade older than her but still treats her like an equal), she also managed to pair her dad up with quite possibly the best step-dad she could’ve ever asked for, _ever_. (Well, okay, fine. He’s not really her step-dad. But he will be, if everything goes according to plan.)

So Harper flicks her hair back one more time, and then says, to Cameron, her voice full of meaning and inflection. “ _How’s your donut_?”

They’ve been scheming together ever since Harry came home with a velvet box hidden in his pocket and had only told the kids about it. He’s been holding out for _weeks_ now, trying to find the perfect time to ask, and it’s quite frankly painful for Harper and Cameron to watch. So Harper finally convinced her dad to let them decide when the right time is. And this morning, when Harry was getting ready to pick up Louis and Cameron, to drive everyone to Fair Fields, Harper had said to him, “Enough already, Dad, Cam and I have decided that you’re truly incapable of proposing yourself, so when I ask Cam how his donut is, that’s a code-phrase, which means you better pull out that ring and propose. It’s almost my _birthday_. I’ll only be eleven once, and this would be the best present ever!”

And, really, her dad never says no to her.

When Harper finishes the question, Harry’s face goes pale, except his cheeks, which burn red. His hands shake as he discreetly pulls something out of his pocket, and it’s a good thing Louis isn’t really paying attention, otherwise he surely would’ve seen him do it. Harry sends another glance to Harper and Cameron, who are both watching him excitedly, before looking straight at Louis as he clears his throat and says, “Louis, I have to tell you a joke.”

Louis laughs in confusion, because Harry’s face looks far too serious for joke-telling. “Okay…”

“Why did the football coach go to the bank?”

Louis shakes his head fondly. “You tell this nearly every day, babe.”

“I know. Just answer.”

“Hmm, I don’t know. Why’d he go to the bank, Haz?”

Harry starts sweating, and Harper cringes. This is not going as smoothly as she’d expected.

“To get his quarter back,” he squeaks, before he starts breathing heavy like he’s having an asthma attack. Harper sends Cameron a ‘what do we do?’ kind of look, before Harry pulls himself together a bit and starts breathing semi-normally again. Louis seems deeply concerned, though, and doesn’t even try to fake a laugh.

“Are you o--”

“Louis, I need to ask you a question,” Harry rushes out, cutting him off in his haste to get it out before he loses all his confidence and never asks.

“Yeah, what is it?” Louis asks, his eyes showing nothing but concern.

Harry gets out of his chair, and crosses over to the other side of the table. While still standing, he says, “Louis Tomlinson,” and then he starts kneeling, and Louis’ eyes widen and he slowly brings a hand up to his mouth. “Louis, will you please marry me?”

If Harper weren’t so happy, she would maybe criticize him for saying the ‘please’, because it sounds a bit desperate, but as it is, she’s smiling so hard her face could break.

“Shit, really?” Louis asks, his voice coming out like a squeak. Harry nods, and he can’t smile yet because he’s afraid he’ll start crying. “Oh my god, Haz. What--Oh my--Yes, what the--yes, yes, of course. Jesus.”

Harry reaches up and tackles him with a hug before even opening the ring box. “Oh, thank god,” he mutters, bending his body down so he can bury his face in Louis’ shoulder. “Right, fuck, you need the ring.”

He finally opens the box and goes to slip the ring onto Louis’ finger, but then second-thinks it, because both of their fingers are covered in donut grease and he doesn’t want to ruin Louis’ brand new ring. He pouts, and then says, “I don’t want to get it all greasy, Lou.”

Louis bursts out laughing, and then hugs Harry again, and then says, “I don’t care, Haz, just put the damn ring on my finger.”

So Harry does, and then it’s official--they’re engaged.

Harper is the happiest she thinks she’s ever been in her life, and she doesn’t really know if Cameron feels the same way, but she assumes so, judging by the huge, goofy smile on his face to match her own. After all, who _wouldn’t_ want Harry to be their dad?

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (To anyone wondering why I didn't mention Gabe in the end bit: It's because when he and Cam were together, they were 15, so chances are, they didn't make it to graduation as a couple. I just couldn't fit that in there without it sounding clunky and weird.)
> 
> Comments are much much much appreciated and they make my day, no matter how small it is! :) x
> 
> homelyrics.tumblr.com


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